Crack pairings range from the making-you-scratch-your-head-in-puzzlement weird, to the gouging-your-own-eyes-out-with-a-fork weird. But they always leave you asking "WHY WOULD ANYBODY THINK THESE TWO BELONGED TOGETHER?!" But interestingly, some fandoms don't have genuine crack pairings — it's true that they end up with Foe Yay and weirdness, but none of their pairings seem to freak people out. This can be down to a small cast, or any pairing seeming plausible by now.

Reasons for writing crack pairing fan works varies. It might be in order to clean up romantic loose ends by bringing together characters left alone, or to erase the memory of a particularly squicky canon pairing. They might be the result of people genuinely searching for a good personality match, or drawing parallels between two characters for whatever reason. A good number are the results of freeform roleplaying. Perhaps they took it on as a challenge to prove they could make it work. Or maybe they did it on a dare. Most often, though, the insanity itself is its own justification, especially to poke fun at more hardcore fans. It can get worryingly serious though... like they actually believe it could happen...

Occasionally, when a fanfic writer gets hold of a crack pairing and makes it convincing enough, that ship gains a following and can even become very popular. It's even been known to influence The Powers That Be.

While crack pairings may show up in crack fics, the two are not necessarily related. A Crack Pairing could very well be treated in a dead serious and realistic way, just like a Crack Fic can be gen, or only about traditional pairings.

Examples:

There's Mac/PC slash out there. Yes, from the Apple commercials. It's John Hodgman and Justin Long having sex, except they have computer ports and plugs instead of human orifices. Aren't you sad you asked now?

Loki from the Thor comics/movie rapes and tortures Sam Winchester from Supernatural. There is an in-verse explanation for why Sam is there, but this is still completely cracktastic. The fact that it has good reviews and multiple chapters is even more disturbing. So sorry for this.

In DC Nation, Wordof God states the entire in-game universe came about due to a crack ship. The universe started as a varient strand of Hypertime (the old DC concept of a multi-verse) that kept attracting variences and it was easy for characters to find themselves in alternate realities. Starfire found a lover in one of these off-shoot realities and brought him home. The lucky gent? A version of Hugo Weaving who had been fated to die in a car accident, but instead ended up in the equivalent of multi-verse's train stop cafe. After he arrived, the universe threw up its proverbial hands trying to make this strand of reality fit with mainline DC, thus creating its own world. (It also makes all those comic book movies that much more amusing to the players.)

The Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics had a joke scene where Omega acted like he was practically falling in love with Blaze after he saw her using her fire powers to blow stuff up (which also acted as his Crowning Moment of Funny). Ian Flynn said that this was just a joke and there wasen't any possible relationship there. Unfortunately for Flynn, the fans fell in love with it. For context, Omega (full name E-123 Omega) is one of Dr. Eggman's robots bent on revenge against the doc, and Blaze the Cat is a princess from a dimension on turmoil with no time for romance. Archie would later publish a Valentine's Day varient cover◊ that depicted characters from the series, asking readers "Who do YOU ship?". A pre-drawn line already connects Omega to Blaze, much to her chagrin.

In an interview concerning the then-upcoming crossover between the Sonic comic and Archie's own Mega Man comic, Kotaku asked Flynn if there's "any animal/human kissing in the crossover". Flynn answered, "Yes. Hot Amy-on-Wily action." He, of course, admitted he was kidding.

In the Continuity Porn-laden Asterix and Obelix's Birthday, Justforkix (from Asterix and the Normans) and Influenza (from Asterix and Caesar's Gift) appear to be a couple. Both of them were One Shot Characters from totally unrelated stories in the comic's Subtle Continuity.

Defied in W.I.T.C.H.: Taranee's parents Lionel and Theresa Cook are a lawyer (Lionel) and a judge (Theresa), but Lionel switched jobs and became a psychiatrist.

Rather popular among the fan is Will X Phobos. Especially cracky because Phobos has done anything in his power to earn Will's hates, to the point she nearly tortured him to death in response to his worst offense and later disintegrated his soul.

The Italian series Lupo Alberto, set in a World of Funny Animals, has one as the main pairing: Alberto, a (baby blue-furred) wolf, and Marta, a hen. Only made crackier by the fact Albertodoeseat chicken: while he won't attack his girlfriend and her family, Marta once caught him carrying away her best friend (a rather fat chicken) with explicit and declared intent to eat her.

Jeff Parker's Thunderbolts run has lots of hints of Moonstone / Man-Thing. Note that the former is a human Manipulative Bastard while the latter is a swamp monster that will burn anything that feels too much fear near it. Man-Thing used to be human but that doesn't reduce the Squick factor much. The weirdest part is that it actually manages to come off as kind of sweet.

In The Lion King 1½, Timon canonically proposes to Shenzi in a last-ditch attempt to keep her distracted. She, like Pumbaa, Banzai and Ed, is utterly repulsed by the idea. Unfortunately it spawned no end of AM Vs, fanfics and 'art' that take it more seriously.

Ralph×Vanellope in Wreck-It Ralph simply because they are the two main characters. No pedophilia here — Vanellope is a full nine-years-old. Most people justify this by giving Vanellope an "upgrade", making her look older and less jailbait-y.

Corporal/Classified is probably the strangest shipping you will ever find in the Madagascar fandom. Which is even weirder when you realize it kinda works... arguably, of course. Especially considering Classified clinging onto Corporal as they're forced to go through Dave's death trap and their dynamic. note Classified is the workaholic leader while Corporal is the laid-back sweetheart.

Films — Live-Action

Bumblebee/Sam, which even has their own live journal community, as does Ironhide/Lennox, with Barricade/Sam and Optimus Prime/Sam also having a small following. No, it doesn't matter that the robots are several times their human partners size, and have a completely different reproduction process, fans of the ships have found ways around these pesky little details.

Many of the pairings on the Star Trek XI kink meme. Honorable mention include McCoy/Sarek, Amanda Grayson/Winona Kirk, Sarek/Winona Kirk, Gaila/Uhura, and Chekhov/EVERYBODY. Not to mention Au!Kirk/Spock Prime.

Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis is inexplicably popular in fic as well, despite the fact that they've never shared a scene—or been in the same movie.note Chris Evans' brief appearance in the second Thor film doesn't count as he was playing Loki shapeshifted to look like Steve

The movie 'A Warrior's Heart' may seem like this for Twilight fans as it pairs up the actors who play Alice and Emmett.

The Dark Knight Rises has Bane/CIA - as in, Bane and the nameless CIA agent at the start of the movie. This mostly arose from /tv/'s obsession with the scene in question, to the point of making videos celebrating the two's love, and that the CIA agent is played by beloved TV star Aidan Gillen.

Alternity is an X-Men: Days of Future Past fic that admits up front that it's a crack fic (although it eases into a horror story once things get serious), and provides the crackiest crack pairing ever: Kitty Pryde/young Magneto. The really scary part is that it actually works.

The Harry Potter fandom is chock full of them. Doesn't matter how minor the characters are, or how biologically impossible various acts would be. If they exist, they will be shipped. For instance, Hagrid/Dobby and Dobby/Giant Squid. (Dobby/Anyone is inherently a crack pairing.)

My Immortal is the undisputed king of this. It includes Hermione/Neville, Snape/Lupin, and Voldemort/Hedwig.

Somewhere on Adultfanfiction.net a author has written two fics about a relationship between Faramir and Shagrat (an Uruk and captain of the guard of Cirith Ungol, the one who found Frodo in Shelob's lair). Actually, very well written.

Some Discworld fan has written Greebo/Rincewind slash. Fortunately with Greebo in human form. While it's only been done once, it keeps being brought up in discussions of Discworld fanfic.

A bet on whether it was possible to write Discworld slash resulted in a Death/Librarian pairing. And it was hilarious.

Similar circumstances resulted in a Luggage/Rincewind. And it was also hilarious.

Death/Vetinari. It's very Victorian and almost in-character. Adorable.

Vetinari/Susan. They've never actually met in the books, but it could work. Here's an example. Ignore the typo in the title, the fic's pretty good.

While the words "pairing" and "H.P. Lovecraft" might not sound like something that should ever be mentioned together, August Derleth most certainly did; he paired several Lovecraft's gods with each other and his own creations, creating a convoluted family tree. One particular example stands out: according to Derleth, Cthulhu is the spawn of Yog-Sothoth and Nub, one of Lovecraft's less-known gods. That's not particularly odd, if it weren't for the fact that Nub is a spawn of Shub Niggurath mentioned above. Which presumably makes Yog-Sothoth her father. Yes, you heard me, incestous Eldritch Abominations. You may want to grab the Brain Bleach, lest you Go Mad from the Revelation.

Bizarrely, this also makes Wilbur and his brother Cthulhu's uncles.

Clark Ashton Smith, one of Lovecraft's frequent correspondents and another of the original Cthulhu Mythos writers, also produced a "family tree of the gods" (which can be found here). Also, in Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror, Yog-Sothoth (an omnipresent superbeing which appears as a mass of spheres) has two children with a human woman. Squicky.

There is also a few fanfiction pairing Lovecraft and Cthulhu on Archive of Our Own[1]. Be warned most of the content is Not Safe for Work.

Les Misérables has multiple crack pairings for most of the characters who are younger than 30 years old by the end of the book, not even getting into the slash pairings among Les Amis del'ABC. The most common crack ship here is Enjolras/Eponine; never mind if Enjolras' only passion is his country, and Eponine is in love with someone else.

Gone with the Wind: Rhett and Melanie. It helps that Rhett genuinely likes, respects, and admires her throughout the book. Alexandra Ripley, who wrote the sequel Scarlett, seems to have sensed this as well—one of her key plots is Rhett marrying someone who is clearly Melanie's Suspiciously Similar Substitute.

Apparently not completely blasphemy, as there are some old 2nd edition rule books describing a half-Eldar. Of course, 2nd edition has been almost entirely retconned by now...

The above could still never compare to the Macha/Emperor of Mankind ship that was spawned later, especially considering Macha's existence is based on the Memetic Mutation that despite her goodlooks she will never get laid, ever.

In a similar vein to Love Can Bloom, there have been fans who ship Primarch Roboute Guilliman and Yvraine, the Herald of Ynnead (Eldar god of the dead). The fact that Yvraine helped heal Guilliman of Fulgrim's poison and the Eldar are mostly allying with the Imperium has added fuel to the fire despite the lore violation this would be.

This is practically the whole point of Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder. Heck, there's even a card depicting Iron Will and Crackle, two one-episode guest stars of non-pony species (one of whom was just an animation gag).

Web Animation

Homestar Runner apparently has a huge, active shipping community for a cartoon with a running gag about having "Only One Girl". Alluded to canonically here, with the pair being Marzipan x The Cheat. In the SBemail "montage", Strong Bad has a romance with a wagon full of pancakes. Another SBemail, "record book," had a "Cutest Couple" record, which went to Bubs. Just Bubs.

John and Gamzee. In one flash (which is mostly a humorous montage of random scenes in Homestuck, some old and some new), scribble versions of John and Gamzee kiss, and right after, a scene from a few acts prior is shown, with Jane making a weird face thinking "What the fuck?".

As one of the bonuses for the HomestuckKick Starter, people who bought a certain reward tier were given two random embroidered patches associated with two random characters. According to the author of the comic, the pairing associated with the two random patches you receive "is your officially designated OTP". Naturally, this could result in the donor being locked into some pretty weird matchups like Jane/Eridan or Equius/Calliope, officially, forever.

Then there's this, which ships John/Meenah. There's a Running Gag in-comic in which every time John meets Meenah she impales him on her trident.

Many pairings that would have seemed like a Crack Pairing initially actually became canon (or at least had enough evidence that the story could clearly have been going that way at one point.) Examples include PM / Jack, Jack / Karkat, and Tezeri / Gamzee. Even Vriska / John—which was teased relentlessly and was sort-of canon for a while—would have seemed like a Crack Pairing when Vriska was first introduced, given that she was a mass-murdering backstabbing psychopath in another universe. Snowman / Spades Slick was canon, and her first introduction was her stabbing him in the eye. Although, a great majority of the ships listed here are actually basedon hate (due to the romance system explained below); so violence is actually considered Ship Tease by the fandom.

Ménage à 3 has a cast mostly consisting of good-looking people, many of them bisexual, and Everybody Has Lots of Sex. However, it also has Eulice the hideous landlady (although she does suffer from Chuck Cunningham Syndrome), so "Eulice and <somebody else>" has become fans' standard joke response to any suggestions about possible pairings.

In the interactive webcomic Awful Hospital, this update resulted in a sudden flood of requests for the (human) protaganist to seduce an anthropomorphic, rotting hamburger creature.

Web Original

Disney World Of War has many crack ships, mainly because it is a massive crossover of the Disney Classics and Pixar. Some crack ships that are canon are Pangel (Patch from 101 Dalmatians and Angel from Lady and the Tramp 2), Scatani (Scamp from Lady and the Tramp 2 and Vitani from Lion King 2) and Berlielle (Berlioz from the Aristocats and Danielle from Lady and the Tramp 2).

The biggest crack ship, bordering on outright Squick, is Sarafina (Lion King)/ Reuben (Lilo and Stitch)! There has been many debates on whether this is the work of a Troll or if Sarafina's player is just bonkers.

From The Runaway Guys' Mario Party 2 Let's Play, after Chuggaaconroy makes a pun involving jinxing things and the Pokémon Jynx, a remark from NintendoCapriSun caused ProtonJon to request fanart shipping Chugaa X Jynx. Chuggaa does something similar later though, after noticing the AI controlled Wario being paired up with Jon in minigames a lot, he requests Jon X Wario fanart.

Mervin, of Das Sporking, ships Snape and Sands purely under Rule of Funny, even writing a multi-fic epic on their adventures Sue-hunting with Mervin and Mrs. Hyde. She also ships Leah Clearwater and Castiel, though this is implied to take place out of the sporking 'verse. There's also a brief moment in one of the Twilight sporkings where Sands gropes Dean Winchester's ass and likes it quite a lot (Dean is squicked). Meanwhile, for the Fifty Shades of Grey series, Gehayi and Ket have fun pretending Grey and Taylor engage in "Catsuit Tuesdays".

There's a Worm fanfiction that ships both Mime!Taylor/Panacea and Grue/Puritynote The former is an African-American supervillain. The latter is a prominent member of a group of white supremacist supervillains. Moreover, their teams are at odds with one another.

When they riffed Darkstalkers, they shipped Henry (a 10-year old boy), Felicia (an adult catperson), and Morrigan (a succubus and one of the main villains) together as a parodic One True Threesome. This makes their other Darkstalkers ship (Pyron/the AI in Pyron's spaceship) look downright sane by comparison.

Their riff of Archie's Weird Mysteries has them shipping Betty and Veronica as a pair of closeted lesbians. This one's notable in that they shipped it largely out of spite; the riffers despised the infamous Betty/Veronica/Archie Love Triangle so much that they refused to accept Archie getting either of them.

Fans of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared seem to be fond of "Padlock", the ship between the notepad from the first song in the series and the clock from the second song in the series. Neither of the two seem to have met or interacted in canon; however, they were in the background together in the third song in one scene.

Until the End of Time pairs Goku/Anne Frank. Yes, THAT Anne Frank. The real life one that died during the Holocaust. The writer seemed to just want to give her a happy ending, but anything with Hitler turning Super Saiyan is just too insane to not list.

The children themselves have ended up being paired off with each other as well. The relationships they end up in are usually much more compatible in comparison to the ones involving their biological parents, thus averting this trope.

Even then some of the roleplayers have had fun crack-shipping some of them. Some of them have gone as far as to actually start crack-shipping characters that have never even been in the roleplay yet.

Even Mythological creatures aren't immune to this, even in the Middle Ages. The Griffin is considered the mortal enemy of horses, and in fact preys on them. You know what a Hippogriff is? Evidently the result of either desperation, a dare, or a night of hard-booze or something. Then again...

In the BIONICLE fandom, a couple of eerie pairings have emerged, although the weirdest would have to be the Onua and Gorast ships. Yes, the Toa of Earth and locustlike Makuta.

Well, everyone in the Matoran Universe kind of counts, since that kind of romance isn't possible per Word of God. Funnily enough, one hears less about shipping with Spherus Magna/Bara Magna characters...even though romance for them is canon.

This New Yorker cover◊ ships Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at that point bitter rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. (The cover's joke is about a Clinton ad which implied that Obama would not be ready for a "3AM phone call", so the shipping may just be an incidental consequence of the joke requiring them to share a bed next to the same phone.)

There is a rather large Livejournal community devoted to slashing Mike Carden (guitarist for the band The Academy Is...) and Kevin Jonas (of the Jonas Brothers), despite them being lesser known members of their bands, apparently having nothing in common, and most likely never having met. Oh, and Kevin's married. The pairing is popular enough that in Google's autofill, "Mike Carden Kevin Jonas" is currently the ninth suggestion you get for Mike's name (and I've seen it as high as #4).

And now that Taylor Swift (who's known for breakup songs) has done a Diet Coke ad, her too.

It is thought that in 1766 a male wolf mated with a Pomeranian resulting in nine pups. There's no telling what those puppies ended up looking like.

Keep in mind that Pomeranians at that time period weren't the average 5 lb toy dogs we know of today. Before they were bred down to their current size in the late 1800s, Poms were more like 30 lb dogs, just a little bit smaller than their closest relative, the Keeshond. So a Pomeranian at that time breeding with a wolf would be similar to modern wolf/dog breeding pairs.

An American Idol fanfic once shipped season 10 Lauren Alaina with New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow.

Petra, a black swan from Germany fell in love with a pedalo (well, it did look like a swan). Their relationship lasted for two years. She has her own fan club and her story was made into a few books, a song and a documentary.

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